"If the political boss wanted something done, he would contact the ministers, who in turn would deliver the message to his congregation. There are many who will refute these observations, particularly the ministers, but I submit that this system is as strong as ever and also that the most powerful political figures in Harlem are not J. Raymond Jones and the district leaders but a group of ministers whom the political power structure honestly believe control the thinking and actions of the Negroes in Harlem." Harold Cruse

Chancellor continues his vision with his Black World at the Crossroads; this
is a continuation of, The Plan so read it and discuss it with like minded
individuals like yourself. For you can only organize with like minded
individuals. We have to look at where we are today and see where we need to go
and strategize on how to get there.

The Black World At The Crossroad

ONE OF THE MOST TROUBLESOME FACTS IN THE STUDY OF
history over very long periods of times, such as several centuries, is that a
truth may slowly emerge, period after period, until it clearly forms itself
into a truth impregnable, a fact nowhere explicitly stated as such in the mass
of data covered. As one continues to move on down through the centuries,
countless events and situations may continue to make supporting additions to
what has already been established as an unassailable fact. Yet that truth may
be so repugnant, so utterly void of any rational or intelligent reason for its existence
that hardly any historian would wish to state it in his work.

Yet I did just that when I wrote that the whites are the implacable foe, the
traditional and everlasting enemy of the Blacks. The compelling reason for
publicly putting this declaration in its historical context is clear: The
necessary re-education of Blacks and a possible solution of racial crises can
begin, strangely enough, only when Blacks fully realize this central fact in
their lives: The white man is their Bitter Enemy. For this is not the ranting
of wild-eyed militancy, but the calm and unmistakable verdict of several
thousand years of documented history. Even the sample case-study of ten black
states in this work shows that each and every one of those states was destroyed
by whites.

Facing this reality does not call for increasing hatred or screaming and
utterly futile denunciations. Far from it.. For all these shouting emotional
outbursts by Blacks are in themselves indications of weakness, because they
becloud the mind and prevent the calm and clear thinking that is absolutely
required for planning if the race is to be saved from final destruction.
Destruction is not too strong a term here. Only fools will be unable to see
that the race is again being hemmed in, surrounded by its enemies, and cannot
survive forever under what might be called a state of gradual siege. Those
Negroes who are still pleading with the whites for brotherhood through
integration are so deaf and blind that they are unable to get the white
enemys reply to these frantic pleas for acceptance through integration.

The reply of whites was so loud and clear that it was heard around the world:
When segregation in schools and residences was outlawed throughout the United
States, whites fled from the cities to the
suburbs just as though a plague had struck, or some deadly disease was
spreading. The Blacks were left alone in the cities, now called ghettoes or the
inner city. This was rejection, total, complete. The black youth of America
got this message from the whites first, and they got it quickly. They formed
new battle lines. Several millions of Middle Class Negroes and their leaders
have not received the message yet, and probably never will.

For them the white man is the ship and all else is the sea. They themselves do
not feel competent to develop the highest standards of life in the all-black
communities created by the very whites they so much worship. For them, there
can be no quality education unless, by hook or crook, some white faces, any kind.
Of white faces, are in the classrooms. Their main drive is to force the fleeing
whites to accept them or, Please, 0 you superior people, allow us to bus some
of our children to your schools! As they achieve these hollow victories on the
integration front, they add a new cry: Give us racial balance!

These Negroes have neither the ethnic pride nor the self-respect that is so
characteristic of the American Indians, Japanese and Chinese; and they seem
utterly insensitive to being openly rejected by the whites, and battle on with
the fantastic idea that they can force the whites to accept them socially.
One major reason why young Black America understood the white position so
quickly was that by some happy circumstance in history they were more closely
attuned to the great common people and, therefore, shared their common
aspirations and common sense

No one has to tell them that there can be no bigger farce than the integration
of hated and oppressed Blacks with the very white enemies who oppress them.
Both the farce of integration and the everlasting white enemy are regularly
highlighted in the worlds press: race riots in integrated U.S. armies in
Europe and even at war in Indo-China; race riots in camps in U.S.A.; race riots
on battle ships of integrated U.S. Navy and, in short, open combat between
Blacks and whites when they are forced together as equals. There is peace and
harmony, of course, when the Blacks humbly stay in their placetheir
subordinate place.

Using the courts to force whites to accept Blacks as equals is quite futile
even when and if all the thousands of court battles are won. White America is
overwhelmingly against integration. And white Americans are no different than
other whites throughout the world. The only instances in their history when
integration was welcomed were when the outcome would put them in a more
dominating position, or one of personal security, money and a prestige they could
never otherwise achieve.

Hence, because of the high premium many Negroes give to a white skin, the most
ordinary whites will eagerly marry any black star or any other Blacks, if they
have money. But in no period in history, and this point is important, have the
masses of Blacks sought integration and general amalgamation with the whites.
During all of their travails, their pride in race was steadfast. Much of the
so-called self-hatred actually reflects a sense of futility and despair over
lack of leadership and unity for action. They, the black masses, rejected
general integration as a movement to obliterate the black race as such. The
black masses still reject it. I have pointed out blind alleys into which we are
being led by leaders whose aims and objectives are quite personal and not those
of the black masses.

These black masses demand absolute equality on all fronts, precisely the same
rights, privileges and responsibilities as all other citizens, and without any
exceptions whatsoever. This obviously includes the right of every individual to
attend the school or college of his choice, rent or buy a home wherever he
pleases, marry whom he pleases, white or black, and to freely use all places of
public accommodation  all of which is a far, far cry from the doctrine that
all of this must necessarily include a white presence to be valid, or a mass
movement by the race toward amalgamation. The presence of whites in any given
situation should be incidental, if considered at all. What the Negroes referred
to above seem incapable of grasping is the difference between a good school
and a white school, a good community in which to live and a white
community. To them they are necessarily the same  continuing evidence of the
Caucasian success in capturing the minds of Blacks.

The Motherland At The Crosroad

The problem is essentially the same in our African homeland. There, too,
white is still the standard of excellence, of what is right, wise and best. I
personally know a number of African presidents and ministers who will not dare
to make important decisions without the guidance of white advisors, men who
often know far less about the questions at hand than the presidents and their
ministers. But they all feel the need for a white seal of approval.

The Blacks, therefore, still have a long way to go in order to achieve absolute
equality as free men among free men. They have a long way to go in the United
States and the numerous other areas in which
they live all over the world.

In Africa, at this writing, Tanzania
leads in the first hard-headed, masses-oriented, socio-economic program that is
expressly designed to raise the level of life of the whole people, beginning
with those lowest down. It is a truly African program, drawing heavily on
African cultural traditions. It was, from its very inception, too much for
those of the Elite who think of independence as a mere transfer of power from
a white ruling class to a black ruling upper class, leaving the masses no
better off than they had been under colonialism. These are the kind of smug and
cocksure leaders who are preparing the ground not for military coups, but mass
uprisings such as Africa

The first line of action should center around the study and development of
nationwide, people-involved, self-help cooperative programs, village by
village, town by town and block by block. Each community would do its own
development planning, the governments principal role being to provide
advisors, training, technical assistance and loans when and where these are
needed. For people with little or no money, barter and exchange are the first
steps toward economic salvation, the bases for capital formation. Increased
food production should be seen as for both wealth and health. The main emphasis
would be inter- community relations between the various language groups in all
development programs.

This means agreement plans for each area to specialize in producing goods
needed but not produced in the other regions. This is the direct route to
national unity through cooperation in order to reach the goals desired in
common by all language groups in each African state. This calls for thinking,
planning and hard work. Now it is just here within the race where integration
is not only needed, but it is mandatory. We shall remain a weak people until we
begin the drive for integration of Blacks first of all, instead of battling to
integrate with other peoples.

The second great task of government calls for furthering the home front
economic development by aggressively working for African economic unity on a
scale never before attempted. Interstate trade and other economic programs
designed to deal with Asia and Europe
must begin with unity of action in Africa itself, region
by region, and then inter-regional or continental efforts, if Black Africa is
ever to free itself from the present economic morass. Nor will we be able to
cover our failures by endlessly sweating and fumbling over South
Africa. Black Africa can never deal
effectively with white-ruled areas until it deals with Black Africa itself
first. The foundation for everything we do or wish to do is economica word
that simply means wealth enough to be really independent and having the means
to do what must be done.

If we have not noticed that every one of the great black nations studied rose
as the result of a variety of wealth-producing activities which enabled them to
achieve set goals, if we missed this fact, then we missed the most important
lesson they left us in this book. Another significant fact was the widespread
trade between the early African states. Somehow they overrode the
communications barriers about which we now hear so much. The crying first
need throughout the African world, however, is dedicated leaders, not just
office-holding bureaucrats, but men and women leaders who will be more and more
in the field among the people, and less and less preoccupied in offices with
paperwork. These will be people on a mission to improve the lives of the
people, rather than enriching themselves. Meanwhile, a frustrated people send
up a silent prayer, often heavy with tears. Please, 0 God! Send us a few real
leaders, just a few, Lord!
has not yet witnessed.

Wanted: Leaders And An African Ideology

The black people of the world have, therefore, come at last to destinys
crossroads. They must make some fundamental decisions as a single people. The
one hopeful sign is that. They are slowly and painfully coming to their
hitherto beclouded senses, coming to realize that they are one people with a
common destiny and that, no matter how scattered over the world, the treatment
suffered by one black group is suffered by all. But there is a terrible crisis
of leadership at the crossroads. There is no united leadership group or any
real effort to create one. The great difficulty is that black leaders, again,
unlike the Jews, do not know what their own heritage is. They are almost wholly
ignorant of their own cultural source from which independent, original thinking
springs and progress is inspired.

The Negro leaders who spearhead and carry on the campaigns for integration
(amalgamation being the aim) not only do not know the great heritage of the
Blacks, they do not want to know it. They wish to draw on the Caucasian
heritage and become identified with it. They are totally rejected by the
whites, but no matter; they keep on trying, because the white liberals do
encourage them to hope by mixing with them from time to time. Other leaders,
equally ignorant of their heritage, simply do not know which way to lead. They,
too, feel compelled to adopt and follow Caucasian ideologies because they do
not feel free, equal and competent enough to develop an ideology of their own,
an African oriented ideology.

Hence, many, including some black youth leaders from whom so much was expected,
are jumping out of white capitalistic democracys frying pan straight into
white communisms fire. Neither system was designed for the black world, yet
each is only too anxious to use the Blacks as they have always been used: A
numerical power base for white rule. Moreover, the capitalistic version of
democracy and the Soviet version of communism not only could not serve the
interests and aspirations of the black masses but they do not serve the
interest of the white massesneither of them. Of course, there would be a much
larger class and a more powerful class of black commissars and black Central
Committees if communism should spread over the black world and more black
capitalists if capitalism becomes the prevailing way of life.

In each case we have not a theory or a speculation, but a plain operating
fact that even a fool can see: Both capitalism and communism have ruling
classes that suppress and exploit the people. The masses of people, like so
many masses of puppets, are fed and filled with the ideals and principles of
both systems. For these they fight and die, screaming these ideals as though
they were drugged. Voting creates an illusion of power that does not exist in
fact. It works wonderfully well for the rulers, the real decision-makers,
because the people in capitalistic democracies actually believe they are
deciding and running things. One surprising difference between capitalistic and
communistic countries is that the people in the latter countries know they are
powerless.

When the United States
assumed the leadership role of holding the line of white Western power
throughout the world, Russia
took over a similar role for the white East European states. The Hammer and Sickle
flag is different than the Stars and Stripes, but each now represents the same
objective: communism seeks to bring the various peoples of the world under the
white supremacy of white communist states under Russian domination; our
capitalistic democracy aims at doing the same thingwhite rule cinder American
domination. Hence the Cold War  which has nothing to do with Communism
itself. The so-called Cold War is, in fact, a contest between two of the
strongest white powers for world domination. Because communism is not the real
issue (as capitalism is not the real issue on the communist side), the United
States will form alliances and give all-out aid and support to a communist
country just as quickly (some say more quickly) as to a non-communist country
anything to weaken, not communism, but Russia, the chief white challenge for
world rule.

As between these two giants the choice of the Blacks can only be a choice
between two groups of white masters, although the yoke and shackles of one are
attractively painted red. Nor will the Blacks find their salvation in Maos China
or any Third World in which they will still be in a
subordinate position. To be equal they must first stand on their own feet.

in this capitalism vs. communism connection, the immediate trouble confronting
the Blacks is that so many millions of them have been made so wholly dependent
on the white race for so many generations that they have become mentally lazy.
For these, dependence has become comfortable; it frees them from the
initiative, responsibility and planning required of independent free men and
women. Leave it to the white folks has become their unspoken creed.

They have not yet come to realize that this attitude of dependence by so many
is responsible for the whole race being characterized as children, and men
being called boys. To be recognized as men, they seem not to know, they must
aggressively assume the real role of men. And this is why so many black leaders
expect the solution to the so-called race problem to be handed to them on the
silver platters of white ideologies. This excuses them from both the mental
tasks of working out their own, and the labor required for actually carrying
through a united action program, first nation-wide and then world-wide.

It is needless to say what elementary common sense dictates, which is that when
the African people achieve enough unity to develop the ideological guidelines
for their own advancement, they will draw what is best for them from any or all
existing systems as a simple matter of course. For whatever an African
organized way of life might be, they would not hesitate any more than Stalin
and the Soviet leaders when they brought in capitalists from the United States,
Germany and Englandnot to adopt capitalismbut to learn those capitalistic
skills, techniques and methods which would be useful in building a great Soviet
Union.

The emerging communist states drew heavily on capitalism when it served
their purpose, openly and without apology. Hence, they became equal with the
greatest powers without changing their own ideology. These observations are
addressed only to those who seem not to know that one may extract what he needs
from capitalism and communism without becoming capitalist or communist.

The Black Unity Threat

No one seems to have noticed or understood the signals from
the white world, signals which tell how tremendously important the whites
regard any movement toward unity among the Blacks. Nothing racial seems to
upset them more. That is why they insist on being in on any black
organizational movement either as financially supporting members, or as
advisors, observers or reporters. To bar them from any exclusively all-black
conference is regarded as something a little less than treason or as some kind
of black conspiracy in the making. On the other hand, no Blacks are ever
present at all-white conferences where the fate of Blacks everywhere is
discussed and decided.

Unity among the Blacks has been prevented for so many centuries that the
various mechanisms to keep Blacks disorganized have been perfected in the
Western system of race control. The white man is keenly aware of the tremendous
power of any well organized groups. But an organization of Blacks on a scope
that would represent the voice of Black America would be a threat and a
challenge not only to continued white domination of Blacks in the United
States, but also foreign policies and practices that affect the lives of
African people elsewhere over the world.

But the apprehension of whites about the possibility of real black unity
appears to be quite as needless now as in the past. For we are still in the
meeting and talking stage of our history, and appear not to be ready even to
begin the attack on the obviously built-in obstacles. These have been pointed
out over and over again in this study. They had to be emphasized and could not
possibly be overemphasized, because, in addition to the historic reasons for
our own self-generated disunity, no other non-white people on earth are in the
dangerous situation of having so many of their leaders selected, appointed,
sponsored or financed by the white ruling classes.

In the case of Blacks in the United States,
and the same is true of Blacks elsewhere, these Negro heads of important
institutions and organizations representing the white mans indirect rule
over the black community. It is the voice of these leaders that is accepted
as the voice of the race. They do indeed have a great following, drawn almost
entirely from the traditional Negro elite or upper middle class lawyers,
government officials, doctors, professors, school administrators, scientists,
engineers, heads of integrationist organizations, etc.

They are essentially anti-black, anti-African and, therefore, anti-black
studies. Hence their frantic drive for integration which, of course, will
effectively check the alarming development of pride in race, a sense of
cultural identity with ones own blood line, and a growing knowledge of being
members of a race with a record of achievements unsurpassed by any other
people, despite the conversion of so much that was black to white. This the
Negro leadership would destroy even at its inception by forcing the black youth
of America more directly under white education, direction and controla vengeful
striking back at black youth for starting a revolt against their mental
enslavement in the first place.

In a panel discussion with three other university presidents, the head of one
major white university said, Integration is a very misleading term. Our black
students are as separate from the white students as they are in the general
society. And they know it. They come because of the vast number of special
scholarships offered to them. This is a wise program from our point of view. It
brings more of the future black leaders into a more traditionally American
environment... We are not disturbed by their demand for black studies, for
these, of course, will be gradually phased out as their emotions cool.. .

That same month (May, 1971), a Negro professor declared, Black studies are
ridiculous in any university. I am not black, and I will not join in this new
hypocrisy. I am a Negro; yet outside the United
States I am considered white.

On .a recent TV program, the head of a militant black movement went even
further. In response to a question, he said, Look at me! I am neither Black, Negro, nor African. I am a Moor. My roots are
in Asia! (He was born in Mississippi.)
But, the moderator pressed, You call your movement a black movement? Ah!
the great Moorish leader replied, Thats strategy, apparently satisfied
that the black masses did not hear him or, if they did, would not understand.

Quite relevant to all this, I have made several points above. One was that,
notwithstanding the white mans well developed system of maintaining disunity
within the African race, he is still disturbed by any signs of a movement
towards unity among Blacks, and goes into action in many subtle ways to offset
it. The important point is the most disheartening. This is the fact that the
white man really has nothing to fear from any effective unity among Blacks for
a long, long time because he himself installs and backs most of the key leaders
of the race, two of which I have just quoted above, and the number is legion.
We still have in the closing years of the 20th century, therefore, exactly the
same unique problem that confronted Africans in Egypt
over six thousand years ago. And we challenge any student of history to point
out any other people who are or have been saddled with a perpetually dis-unifying
and progress-checking problem of this magnitude.

For while the white man has mingled his blood with non-white peoples from times
immemorial, in no other people was the outcome a hostile race within a race.
No other non-white people with Caucasian blood, whether Indian, Japanese or
Chinese, feel any compelling reason for integration (a code word for
amalgamation) with the whites. Quite the contrary, they resist it as a policy
or an acceptable general practice.

The only hope for the kind of racial unity that will really liberate the Blacks
in America and
command the respect of the world will be a new kind of mass organization on a
scale with an action program never before attempted. This will require a new
kind of leadership, a leadership with the single purpose of helping the masses
up towards a better life. We are noted for our countless organizations, large
and small. Each is an independent kingdom, struggling to become an empire under
a Great Chief. This is inevitable in the circumstances. But as the history of Africa,
not one of these, standing alone, can meet the mounting crisis of the race. If
they will not unite, the race need not continue in despair because of the
unyielding pride of individual leaders. A peoples mass organization movement
can override all obstacles. But will this be done?

The subtitle of this book, Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.,
has puzzled some readers. 2000 A.D.? That is the end of this century, and we
are not there yet! This subtitle, however, not only reflects the authors
conviction that the main obstacles which confronted us in the past and are with
us today will still be with us in the year 2000 and after, but also that for
the rest of this century it is very likely that the Blacks will still be
meeting, listening to and applauding fiery, soul-stir ring speeches, protesting
and denouncing injustices or happily relying on politics as the ultimate
solution of our problems.

The frustrations, confusion of goals, and a sense of helplessness are likely to
continue into the next century. What black youth began as the foundation for a
new and mighty advance may be, and, indeed is being, defeated.

But whether the task of what must be done is undertaken by this generation or
left to the next, one thing is certain: It can never be said again that the
black race does not know exactly what to do, or that not a single member of the
race ever carefully studied and then presented a Comprehensive Plan as one way
out. For the final pages of this work offer such a PLAN. It is not THE PLAN,
but A PLAN  a comprehensive basis for beginning and improvingbut beginning.

Organizing A Race For Action

JUST AS IT IS IN THE CASE OF AFRICA
AND BLACK PEOPLE

everywhere; the central problem of over 35 million Blacks in the United
States is unity. Nothing will ever be
achieved by such a minority group in white America,
nothing that leads to real adjustment for progress, until a powerful unity
movement among Blacks develops throughout the United
States. This must be done to achieve full
recognition even as men and women, not to mention full citizenship. As a larger
and larger measure of nation-wide unity is achieved, the next two steps should
be in the direction of charting a practical line of advance and of action, once
the courses of action are carefully and sensibly planned.

The picture of several thousand black organizations, each independent and vying
for leadership, is substantially the same picture of fragmentation and disunity
in Africa that led to the downfall of the whole race. We
have also seen that even in earliest times very often all that was involved was
that somebody wanted to be the head, was not getting there fast enough and,
therefore, organized his own little state. Most of them perished, picked off
one by one. The same thing will happen to any black organizations, standing
alone, that disturbs the white mind.

The obstacles to unity are so great that the outlook is both discouraging and
frightening to all but the strong with the will to both survive and overcome.
The very first major obstacle to be overcome involves a mental revolution out
of which Black America faces up to the stark reality that white America as a
whole is its enemy, that Blacks will be recognized only in a subordinate role,
that the scattering of black office holders, high and low, really means nothing
to the race as a whole, that there are actually two sets of laws as
administeredone for whites and one for Blacks, just as there are two sets of
wages and prices; and finally, that the Blacks loyalty and devotion to the
whites, in spite of all they have done and still do against them, mystifies the
whites themselves and confirms anew their belief that such humble-dog attitudes
indicate inferiority independently of everything else.

Until Afro-Americans are quite clear in their own minds about their real
situation in this country, all talk about unity and achieving equal justice
will be just thatuseless talk. But with a clear understanding of reality, the
specific studies and planning for a broad program for securing racial unity and
progress can begin.
No one would propose that 35 million Blacks be brought under a single umbrella
of leadership. Nor is that necessary, But an organizing national conference
should develop a program designed to form hundreds of organizations into one
vast national bo4y of millions, with each society carrying on its own functions
as before except in matters concerning the whole race, or organize by families
and individuals, community by community and state by state.

Where the matter concerns the whole race, affiliated groups would speak in one
voice through the overall organization of the race. But since the overall Race
Organization will be directly involved in promoting definite Action programs on
all fronts, the members of all affiliated groups will also be members of the
overall Race Organization.

The separatist movement of whites gave Negro integrationists another shock,
showing them how utterly dependent they had been on white enterprise for just
about everything, even in all-black neighborhoods before the whites left their
own exclusive sections. But the shock did not affect their dependent mentality.
In an all-black community of 100,000 people there were only 3 black-owned
grocery storesand very small ones at that, compared with 75 white-operated
stores. Not a single black-owned hardware store (7 white) or laundry (15
white-owned Laundromats), etc. In a city of nearly a million Blacks there is
not a single black-owned department store or any other important enterprise. We
have left it all to the whites, just as though they alone can create jobs and
job opportunities.

The perpetual hat-in-hand cry of poverty must end. What we have too much of is
the poverty of spirit. Nor will the lack-of-finance alibi stand, for in spite
of our lower incomes, we waste millions in luxuries. What we lack is the
chain-store vision and the enterprising spirit that organizes groups fully able
to launch large-scale community-financed undertakings.

The white withdrawal created city-wide black communities. Most of the first
class services went to the suburbs. The Blacks must now fill the gaps on all
fronts, must prove their worth. The time for big talking is over. The time for
big action is here. That is why a nation-wide movement for unity in one vast
organization of millions is the road to constructive action through the various
black communities of the country.

Wanted: All Prisoners To Enlist!

Organizing the race for action must include a carefully
developed plan for tapping and drawing on some unused and rejected sources of
sources of strength. These are our prisoners and former prisoners. For among
the many problems which the Blacks themselves must solve is crime, and
primarily because almost all crimes committed by Blacks are against Blacks, not
whites. There must be some program of action in sheer self-defense. Both crime
and the fears for safety it breeds will begin to disappear in the black
community only when some such programs for unity, for opportunities, and public
education as outlined in this work gets underway.

These offenders do not know that they are enlisted in the white mans army to
slowly destroy the race. The War takes many unsuspecting forms, including the
big and increasingly widespread use of narcotics among Blacks; and an armed
surrounding suburbia, trained by Sports men gun and target clubs;
nation-wide task forces, specially trained for inner-city operations, the
list goes on and on.

The community must be made safe for people to live and work, happily and
without fears for themselves or their children. Therefore, the Blacks
themselves must have a program. Here is where community control, about which
we hear so much, should begin. First, anti-crime steps might be widespread
information (which is education) about the true meaning of Blacks crimes
almost exclusively against Blacks, and secondly, community development plans
are designed to create more opportunities for all.

There are other possible programs that could radically reduce crime, programs
short of the final step. For, if all else fails, the community, each community,
should open an all-out war along lines determined by the community. No such
final course will be necessary, however, if the black community becomes a truly
functioning community in fact. For then there would be so much work to be done
in an overall race movement that the so-called criminal, in jail or out, would
have a society not only to return to, but one that welcomes him warmly and
needs him (or her) urgently.

As things now stand all this talk about returning to society is sheer idiocy.
What society? The only society I know about is as criminal and oppressive
outside of the penal institutions as are its representatives inside of them.
The big difference is only in the bigness of society in general, the bigness of
crime off the street and up in high places, and the bigness of the hostility
to, and rejection of the men coming out of prisons by the very same society to
which they are expected to return and adjust!

We are, whether we realize it or not, imprisoned inseparably with our confined
prisoners, ex-prisoners and those who are headed for places behind walls. We
are together. Who is going to be murdered, then? Raped? Robbed? The whites? Of course not, and for several clear-cut reasons.

The first may not seem obvious. But Blacks who so readily make criminal attacks
on their own people are, unconsciously, striking out against the unbearable
situation of what appears to be permanent disunity and, therefore, the utter
helplessness of a race whose liberation from oppression can be achieved only by
united initiatives of its own. They, the so-called criminals and their youthful
followers, expect nothing beneficial from the white world, and see no reason
for hope in their own. Hence, like caged animals, they strike at what is
nearest themtheir own people. They are actually trying to kill a situation
they hate, unaware that even in this, they are serving the white man well. For
the whites need not go all out for genocide schemes, for which they are often
charged, when Blacks are killing themselves off daily on such a large scale.

This brings us directly to the second reason why most crimes by Blacks are
against Blacks and not, as even the whites would expect, against whites. The
unequal justice system of white America
encourages Blacks to commit crimes against Blacks, and even rewards them with
lighter sentences if convicted. Black life is cheap. Black womanhood is not
honored. One may destroy either with both ease and relative protection. All
this could be radically changed by a nation-wide organization of the race with
a new outlook program of a new kind of educational system, training when needed
and, above all, enterprises as a job-creating systemthe very first moves
toward the creation of the kind of society that will give both pride and inspiration
to black youth, and the kind of society that will have positive alternatives to
crimes, and one to which every prisoner can return with hope. In such a society
the very expression ex con or ex anything else would be rigorously banned.

This would be a part of the new education about which I have spoken. All talk
about reform and rehabilitation is just so much nonsense until society
itself is reformed, for you can never rehabilitate men and women who have never
been habilitated in the first place. You can never re-form those who have never
been allowed to be formed. Black society still has the spiritual qualities for
the task. What is needed now is an honest, and unselfish collective leadership.

I have gone into some details in both outlining the most disturbing spots cast
by the darkening shadows of history and also trying to pinpoint what the
possible signs of promise are. For the black world, historys Watchman could
see no sign of promise, no sign of hope outside of a position of strength which
unity alone can provide. But there will never be a real unity without a plan
and a program to sustain it. Petty power struggles, bickering and attacking
each other are all signs of a death wish as a race. Which way, then, you still
enshackled Blacks? Six thousand years of their history has answered: Unite or
perish. The tragedy that bloodied the pages in every period of their history
because of disunity should be warning enough for the Blacks of Africa, the Caribbean,
and elsewhere. But, being the one people who are generally ignorant of their
history, it may well be that many will not see unity as a question of life or
death. However, there has been so much history during the time of those now
living that the precarious situation of the black race should be obvious to
all.

Only a largely united people can successfully confront oppressors and, without
praying on bended knees, or even pleading, secure the removal of all shackling
chains. The choice is between unity of action in calm, careful thinking and
planning the courses of action through one vast organization of millionseither
this or ultimate damnation. If the race is incapable of unity, it is incapable
of survival as a free and equal people, and will deserve all the iniquities
imposed upon it, for it will have proved beyond all question that it is indeed
unfit to survive as a people free and equal in every respect whatsoever with
the other peoples of the earth.
What is proposed here is a moratorium on futile rhetoric and the beginning of
real racial unity through an action program never attempted before.

Therefore, black leadership obstacles will still be with us, and for the same
ancient reasons. A mass organization expressly planned to enrich the lives of
the people on all fronts, and directly through the peoples ownership of, and
profit-sharing in all economic enterprises this will be too much for many
leaders to adopt, except in principle. And any such all-Africa race movement
in the United States
will certainly be bitterly opposed by all Negro integrationists because no
whites would be in it. This, in their skewed minds, means black separatism.

Black Separatists-Who Are They ?

The simple truth is that the African people in the United
States and throughout the world are not, and
never have been, separatists in fact. Perhaps this has been their weakness.
They have never really hated the whites, and they do not really hate whites now.
What is taken for hatred, when applied to Blacks is their reaction against
being hated, rejected and oppressed. And the thinking whites know this very
well.

When they cry, Racism in reverse! or reverse discrimination and reverse
segregation, they are saying, in effect, that Only we whites may discriminate
or segregate  but not you Blacks! All-white organizations that exclude Blacks
everywhere are normal and proper from the white perspective, but an all-Black
organization excluding the whites? Perish the thought! Whites flee en masse
from cities throughout the nation to avoid integrated schools and fair housing
laws. These are the real separatists, not the Blacks who never fled from the
whites at all. Yet those Blacks who said, Let them go! Let us not pursue them.
Let us stay where we are, stand on our own feet as men and women, and begin to
build and improve our own schools and communities. These, not the whites, are
denounced as separatists or Black Nationalists.

The question which Blacks must answer and act on, or remain forever exactly
where they are, is how can a minority group in a situation distinctly different
from that of any other minority, successfully live and develop happily in an
overwhelmingly white society? This is the question that faces us squarely in
the critical times at the Crossroads. And the decision must be taken as a race,
and by the race, rather than by self- appointed leaders.

The term crossroads here must be taken more seriously than a mere metaphor.
For a people may reach that intersection in life where the routes cross,
leading in different directions. We only know the road over which we have just
come. So at the crossroads we must pause, uncertain. Which way now? Which way
should we go? The numerous movements, led by charismatic leaders with catchy
slogans to shout, are roads many will take. The biggest crowd-drawing route
will always be baited with some kind of religion, led by some prophet or
mystic. For religion, any kind of religion, has been the means by which hope
was maintained by a people without any basis for hope.

And the search for real leaders has always been so desperate that the people
flock to this or that promoters movement, hoping that a true leader has been
found at last.

The personal wealth amassed by these leaders is a matter of pride for many of
their followers  to the poor and ignorant who are being fleeced, even the
palatial mansion with colorfully uniformed servants reflect the power and glory
of their leader. Criticism is silenced. For these leaders are shrewd, natural
psychologists. They know exactly what appeals to the deprived masses, what will
give them a feeling of being somebody and uplifted. Thousands will continue
to be exploited by the smarter ones who know all the tricks that stir the
emotion and empty pocketbooks. And, apparently, these countless thousands of
faithful followers like it.

There are several big organizations, each concerned with different
aspects of the racial situation, which carry on successful and much needed work
in their respective fields. Some were on the battlefront for the race when no
one else was there. Without them, the situation of Blacks in America
would be far worse than it is. If we henceforth advance at all, no matter in
what direction or how different, it will be from the foundations the best of
these organizations have already laid.

How long the black race will stand at the crossroads, uncertain what to do,
confused, and, in fact actually afraid, how long, only future history will
tell. But one thing is certain: There is a way out; there is an open, UNTRIED
road. That untried road to actual unity and the actual improvement of the lives
of the black masses everywhere is exactly what is proposed in these pages in
clear, concrete, and specific terms

The Direction Of Civilization

Since, by the actual nature of things, racism will never be wished away, the
human race could escape the predicted general war between races and reach a
real state of civilization at last through a symbiotic society. There would be
no pretense of love and brotherhood which did not exist in fact. The fierce
and increasing battles of the whites against integration illustrate the point
most clearly. And this is why people of the African race will have to accept
the harsh fact that they are rejected by the whites, back up, and begin to
reorganize for a position of power that commands respect, not love, and one
that will, therefore, bring about the kind of cooperation and opportunities
that eventuate in real equality and equal justice. Equality simply means the
removal of every barrier that prevents a human being from realizing his fullest
potential.

To achieve the goal of survival and self-action progress the Blacks do not have
to withdraw anywhere to form a separatist society, for the whites themselves have
created an even more completely black separatist society in their mad flights
to the suburbs. Here we have all that is meant by symbiosis before our very
eyes  living, concrete and almost complete. For, having thus withdrawn to make
their own separatist community more complete, the whites must not be allowed to
perpetuate the lower status of Blacks by also controlling and dominating the
black community from which they fled.

But this will mean something far more than the black peoples fragmented programs
of the 1 960s  marching demonstrations, singing, praying in public squares,
shouting protests and slogans, or even the frantic screams of Burn, baby,
burn! Self-destroying, uncontrolled emotional outbursts must be checked
precisely because they becloud the mind, make you just the easy targets the
enemy is waiting for, and thereby prevent the kind of deliberate and rational
thinking and planning that can not only defend and advance the life of the
community, but can help civilization itself to survive.

Now it may well be that perceptive whites will be quick to see, probably even
before Blacks, that my reference to them as the traditional enemy of the race
is not at all a call for increased hatred, tensions and endless conflicts
between the races. For those whites who have read even the high points of the
record presented in this work will see with no trouble at all that I have
singled out the exact routes to the kind of organized power and influence which
will engage a subordinated people in self-improving activities that demonstrate
visibly their equality as men and women throughout the world.

The perceptive whites will also see quickly enough that reference to them as
enemies of the race will be a threat to their absolute supremacy only if it
causes the Blacks to wake up, begin to realize how fragile is the basis for
their present faith in the ultimate justice of the white man, and begin to
unite to plan a different course, something they have never done before. Above
all, they can see the great difference between the powerful force of a massive
body organized on such a scale that it will actually represent the voice and
will of Blacks in America

For they know that both the real economic and political power in the United
States is silently exercised by the
thoroughly organized giant corporations which, supported and financed by the
tax-paying public with government grants and subsidies, operate realistic
socialism at the top. How was all this power achieved? This is the important
question here. Study their steps to unity and be amazed, because no matter how
diverse and competitive the giant corporations were, they formed, step by
step, the most thoroughgoing system of overall unity in the world. At the
summit of world corporate power, it is neither private nor free enterprise.
Small business enterprises are indeed private, but they are free only in
imagination. They are the dependent satellites of the all- powerful
interlocking corporations and conglomerates. This quiet capitalistic socialism
is interesting to study and compare with the openly proclaimed Marxist or state
socialism. If we ignore the ideological principles and slogans that influence
the masses, all appear as actually anti- people and, therefore,
anti-civilization.

The main thrust of civilization, like religion itself, was toward a more humane
society, piloted and guided by the upward march of the human spirit as man
slowly advanced from beast hood to a higher and higher level of mankind.
Blessed with a mind that enabled him to think, analyze, discover and invent, he
could now evolve education and promote the development of science and
technology to further the advance of the whole human species. The medium of
exchange, which in relatively recent times became money, was expanded to
facilitate the spread of necessities of life for the common welfare. But
somewhere back through the years the whole upward trend was reversed as
aggression inspired by greed led to the easy acquisition of both wealth and
political power by the daring few at the expense of the many.

Mass poverty, and the ignorance and disease which are its inseparable
companions, spread as the wealth belonging to all the people came to be owned
or controlled by the few in every country, no matter what system or ideology it
claimed. This is not the direction civilization is supposed to take. We have
what should be its reflection: advances in science, technology, great
skyscraper cities, skies filled with aircraft, moon flights improvements in
everything but man himself, his murderous, greedy soul being still ages back
there in the caves of his ancestors.

For the Blacks, who are most victimized everywhere; their own situation can be
radically changed in a program that regards money only as the means by which
they can do the things that must be done through cooperation. For the kind of
NEW Cooperative organization we have been discussing will be different from
those now existing in fundamental aims and objectives. The concept here is
Cooperation as the humane law of life, total and actual unity, brotherhood and
sisterhood throughout the organization, and not just economic cooperatives,
such as stores, markets, housing, farms, etc., important as these will be. And
we say this united movement toward a more humane economic system in the midst
of a dog-eat-dog, money-mad, competitive society will be a movement in the
direction of real civilization. The challenging question is whether Blacks of
the 20th century can recover enough of the vision, strength and will of their
forefathers who built the great pyramids to undertake the tasks of this present.

The Liberation Of Our Minds

This is Task Number One. It will not be easy, and will not
be easily achieved in a single generation. The reasons have already been rather
clearly set forth. The present-day confused outlook of the African people is
the result of centuries of Caucasian acculturation, a quite natural process
wherever one people come under the economic, political and social domination of
another people. The ideologies and value system of the oppressors quite
unconsciously become those of the oppressed, even when the result is
demonstratively against themselves.

But all other oppressed peoples, whether Indian, Chinese or Japanese, were able
to hold on doggedly to their own racial pride and cultural heritage as the last
resource for survival as a people. Unlike the Blacks, they were never
completely cut off from this sustaining life-line of every people.
In order to clear away some of the confusing cobwebs -from our minds, we may be
helped by re-thinking through the following propositions:

1. Black Americans en masse are not going to emigrate to Africa
or anywhere else. This is a fact equally true of all large black populations
elsewhere outside of Africa. The real spirit of racial
identity with the land of our forefathers, and a real Pan Africanism will
emerge only in those black population areas which, through their own unified
development programs, have reached the level of strength that enables them to
maintain a permanent system of exchange in visits, goods and services with the
motherland and other areas.

2. Nobody is going to destroy the American system. And nobody is going to
destroy either capitalism or communism. There will be no attempt here to go
into detailed analysis to demonstrate why neither capitalism nor communism can
be acceptable wholly by the African people. Draw on any beneficial elements in
each? YES. Accept either one as our total system? NO. Those who have been so
brainwashed into ideological blindness that they cannot see that the actual
political, economic and social structures of capitalism and communism are
substantially the same, with the same upper ruling classes, same elite classes,
and the same controlled and exploited masses. Those unable to see this
operating over the world before their very eyes, will, of course, be unable to
see what is presented here.

3. Since most Blacks live within what is essentially a capitalist system, when
they face up to the fact that neither they nor any other shouting group are
going to destroy the system, then they will be in a position to plan how to
deal with the system. They not only need wholly accept it, but they should
reject black capitalism as a solution of the economic bondage problems of the
masses; for, it must certainly be clear by now that my whole focus is on a
system that directly benefits the people lower down, the great common people,
and not just the further enrichment of Blacks who are already well-off and far
ahead. And Africans in a capitalist state have the freedom to organize and do
for themselves things they would never be allowed to do in any communist state.
This all-important fact must be acknowledged even by bitter enemies of the
. system simply because it is a fact. From this fact comes the opportunity for
Blacks to unite and develop a more humane economic system of a new kind of
community cooperatives, owned and controlled by the people in each community.

4. The white man as an enemy of Blacks will become less and less a fact and his
hostile or contemptuous attitude will change to more and more respect if and
when this race begins to move forward on three fronts: (a) The first is the
kind of massive organization the very existence of which means the presence of
an organized POWER to be reckoned with. (b) The second is a nationwide economic
development program, promoted by the unified race organization as enterprises
of a united people, as distinguished from those of private individuals and
corporations.

The aims would be the creation of career and general employment opportunities,
a national foundation and central banking system to maintain and safeguard the
financial resources required to carry on the work of the raceand without which
we can only remain a pleading and begging people. (c) Political Action: There
is no question about better race relations developing as more and more members
of the race register and vote, and the number of black officials elected to
office increases. The recent notable increase in the number of black elected
officials in the United States
be it remembered, resulted almost entirely from the existence of predominantly
black communities after the whites had withdrawn to the suburbs.

The bitter irony in this situation is that thousands of Negro integrationists
quickly took advantage of this concentration of black political power to be
elected to local, state and national offices (Congress). If their program to
break up all black communities and scatter-site the people among the whites
had succeeded they would never have been elected to office. The few well known
exceptions do not change the picture. Yet the great focus of todays black
leaders, young and old, is on Politics. That is understandable, for we are
still in the talking stage, and politics is a profession of talkers.

The drive to increase the black vote should go on. The election of Blacks to
office should be accelerated. Still the central questions will demand answers
sooner or later: What kind of persons are we electing? After the politicians
are elected to the various offices, who, besides themselves, actually benefit
from all the campaigning and voting? How much real difference would it make in
the situation of Blacks in this country if we elected 15 U.S.
Senators, 100 Congressmen, 5,000 state legislators, mayors, etc.? For what is
well known is that some black officials, once elected to office, turn out to
be as conservative and reactionary as any Congressman from the backwoods of Mississippi.
Yet politics is too important to be left forever in present situations.

Blacks need more political education on how to choose whom, or evaluating
guidelines above the prevailing gift of gab. The respect of the whites (which
was the point of departure) in the realm of politics may be very superficial
indeed and tentative. Here he is seeking the black vote, seeking help in
securing a better job and a better position of political power. Black political
power can support, but never replace an organized economic power system within
the race itself that gives it the resources to do what has to be done, the only
move that will command the respect for Blacks as a people, throughout the world.

5. The fifth barrier to the liberation of our minds would have been set forth
first if we were proceeding in the order of importance of difficulty. For it
is, perhaps, the most tragic and formidable. That mental blockage of total
liberation developed from the way religion has been used to capture, enslave
and exploit the black people of the world for over a thousand years. For the
African people are, and always have been, a very religious and high spiritual
people. But we were also a religiously gullible people, believing that the
religion of the foreigners, with their belief in one supreme God, though called
by different names, was essentially the same as our own. And this was right.
What the Blacks did not know, however, was that while both Christianity and
Islam were in themselves great and acceptable faiths, they were being used by
men whose main purposes were conquest and enslavement in pursuit of economic and
political power.

The whole continent of Africa was taken over, its wealth exploited, and its
people dehumanized through enslavement, all in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah,
and Civilization. Their success is always assured because, when the spotlights
of history are turned on and reveal that those conquest aims were for political
domination and economic exploitation under the cover of religion, they scream
that their religion itself is under attack, and their faithful followers
believe it! Thus the great religions of both Islam and Christianity have been
disgraced by evil men with bloodcurdling cries of Jihad!, or Holy War
against black unbelievers (pagans), or the Christian missions of civilization
that rationalized European conquests. The future task before Black Muslims and
black Christians is distinguishing their true religion from how evil men have
used it to serve their own non-religious purposes. This writer, for example, is
a devout Christian, but that fact does
not blind him to the chains of bondage hammered on his race in the name of
Christianity or cause him to try to gloss over or soften the records of history
when his own religion is unfavorably exposed.

6. To escape at last from our mental house of bondage we must see this
color-crazy world in a clearer perspective, for color-crazy it is. We should
begin by drawing a vast African Circle
of Honor around all those millions of Africans of mixed blood often referred to
as Mulattoes, who from the earliest times to the present have stood steadfast
and loyally identified with the race of their originally black mothers. They
deserve special honor exactly because they did not have to do so when amalgamation
of the races spread over Egypt
and the Arabic world, and they had compelling reasons for not being identified
with black-skinned Africans. For they were classified as white and, therefore, not subject to
enslavement.

This fact is of the greatest importance in understanding the history of this
race, for if skipped over as it always has been, that history will remain
confused. Therefore, we have pointed out that when the general enslavement of
whites and Mulattoes ended and slavery was confined to those with black skins,
the color of black itself became the trademark of slavery and, therefore,
anathema, evil, and the worst that could happen to a human being was to be born
black. And this is why we have drawn an African Circle
of Honor around those of mixed blood who, in spite of all this, even through
the most frightful centuries split off from their pro- white and anti-black
brothers and sisters to remain with the unfortunate Blacks.

Where the future of an entire race is the concern, the importance of being
fully aware of the great difference in racial attitude that has always existed
among those of mixed blood should be self-evident. The course of that future
will be determined by a growing mass of intelligence and alertness which
enables people to use quite different criteria in the search for honest and
reliable leaders. At present our mental laziness permits any smooth and
fast-talker to assume leadership. Just knowing about anti-black mulattoes will
not remove need to know what each individual stands for. Color is no guide,
for the blackest of the Blacks may be an arch traitor.

The best route emerges before the eyes in every race-wide situation: a
race-wide organization, in this case to provide mass education in the homes,
the kind of community-wide information that will enable the people to choose
dedicated and competent leaders and other essential workers, and ferret out the
exploiters who worm their way into key offices which enable them, as
representatives of the white man, to defeat or check any organized, all-black
efforts to advance.

7. In view of the facts already set forth, it should not be surprising why so
many American Negroes are identifying themselves with the Arabic Middle East or
Asia rather than Africa. The fact
that in the United States all Africans and persons with any discernible African
blood were legally classified as Negroes made a most important difference, and
contrasted sharply with other parts of the world where Mulattoes are either
classified as white or given the legal status of a separate ethnic group with a
privileged status above those with dark or black complexion. Even Mulattoes
arriving from some of the West Indian islands are often shocked to find the
American practice of classifying all of them as Negroes. They resent it, and
many will not live in the United. States for this reason.

By contrast, the anti-black Mulattoes in the United States, while resenting the
indiscriminate grouping also, have accepted both Negro and Colored as
proper names (and Black tentatively for strategic leadership reasons), have
sought a breakthrough by spear heading drives for integration, forced busing
for racial balance, and s housing in white suburbia. Most important, during
the past twenty years, increased travel enabled them to learn with certainty
that Mulattoes are indeed considered white, throughout the Muslim Middle East
and Muslim North AfricaEgypt,
Algeria, Tunis,
Morocco, Syria,
Jordan, Iraq
and the Holy Land of Islam, Saudi Arabia.

Now anyone who is even moderately acquainted with the history of the Arab slave
trade for the past two thousand years would know that, as a result, there are
not only millions of Mulattoes throughout the Arab states, but countless
thousands of jet-black Africans whose ancestors were also born there. All speak
Arabic, are Muslims, and consider themselves Arabs for exactly the same reasons
as emphasized before, that Blacks born in the United
States consider themselves Americans. One
can very readily understand why those Negroes who wish to escape Black or
African identity are pushing for an identity of color with their kind in those
countries where they are white and, therefore, in a class distinctly superior
to the still enslaved or subordinated Blacks still living there. And they have
every right, natural or otherwise, to follow their own inclinations.

Indeed, the race would experience the joyful relief that comes with a new birth
of freedom if this particular group would stop trying to operate in both the
white and black worlds, stop straddling the fence and get down decisively on
the side of its choice. They will never do this, of course, because they enjoy
the same double advantage of a most famous ancestor, Leo Africanus, who, when
pressed in Rome to say whether he considered himself African or white, replied
that he shifted to whatever side it was expedient to be on from time to time.
When the Africans are on top, I am an African, he said. This class of mixed
bloods will always be an embarrassing threat to the other millions who,
although also of mixed blood, are wholly African in spirit and pride. These
latter are the Adam Clayton Powells, of the race who are not only above
suspicion, but are regarded by the black masses as inseparably their own.

That a little learning is a dangerous thing is also indicated among the
relatively few who preach about the Jews being a black people, Joseph and
Mary being Black and Jesus Christ also Black, etc. A group of American
Negroes recently went to Israel,
claiming that they were the original Jews, the Lost Tribe of Israel, and
that, therefore, the country belonged to them. Movements of this kind would not
deserve even a sentence here if they were not indicative of the frustrations
and confusion, and the frantic pulling in different directions which further
bind the race in chains difficult to break. They are mental chains as well as
blinders.

Now the confusion about Black Jews derives from the same historic
developments which have been explained about white and black Arabs, exactly the
same. For we have shown that Jews were in Africa from
the earliest times and that Africans were in Palestine
from the earliest times. And just as the Jews ruled in African Egypt for
several centuries, so also the Africans ruled over Palestine
for several centuries. But, unlike the Arabs, the Jews never engaged in the
general enslavement of Blacks. In cases of warfare either side might capture
segments of the population to be marched off to work in the victorious nation,
a notable instance being the Jewish captivity in Egypt
and their later emancipation and return under the leadership of Moses. Not only
did many coloured Jews cross the Red Sea with Moses, but
doubtless many converted jet- black Jews, such as the wife of the Lawgiver
himself. Furthermore, as in the case of the Arabs, we often confuse race with
religion.
The people we call Jews indiscriminately are Hebrews by race and Jews by
religion. Anyone can be a Jew, but not a Hebrew. The Hebrews and the Arabs are
both white Semitic peoples, and no number of offsprings by non-Hebrews and
non-Arabs, or adherents to either religion, will ever change this absolute
fact. After all those centuries of racial mixing, there was nothing unusual
about the appearance of great coloured leaders in Palestine or anywhere else in
Asia, including, from time to time, their rise to kingship in Israel, Syria (Aram),
Mesopotamia, etc.

But the white Jews (Hebrews) and white Arabs remain exactly what they always
werewhite; and this is why (and who pretends not to know it?) that there is a
racial crisis today in Israel between the ruling white Jews and the coloured
Jews who have migrated there from the above mentioned lands. These are the
coloured adherents of Judaism from Arab countries, but who never became
Muslims. It will be going overboard to drown if we follow fanatics in
attempting to blackize everything and everybody that suits their fancy. It is
quite useless and unnecessary to try to make either Jesus Christ or the Prophet
Mohammad black or even coloured. However, the most important point to be
noted in reference to the American Negro group, the Lost Tribe of Israel
which landed there only to be rejected, is that it illustrates dramatically all
that has been presented in these pages about those groups within the African
race who are trying hard to escape from it, seeking their identity with a white
peopleany white people.

And we have said, Let them go! The only thing we object to, and will
fight to the end, is the attempt to program the whole race again on a march
away from itself or allow them to remain as leaders of the same people from
which they wish to flee.

8. Finally, another major obstacle to unity and progress that is hardly ever
openly discussed must not only be discussed but attacked in a nationwide
program in the home. Obviously, only a massive nationwide organization can deal
successfully with any of our massive problems. This one concerns an
inheritance from slavery. It is the attitude of indifference and disrespect of
Blacks toward Blacks. To the average Black, another Black is not as important
as someone, anyone, of another race. Therefore, black clerks or salespersons
will serve whites more quickly and politely than they will serve members of
their own race.

This evil spirit from slavery pervades all classes, whether -lawyers,
carpenters, doctors, painters, nurses, shop owners, school heads, teachers,
repairmen, garbage and trash men, paperhangers, taxi drivers, movers and
haulers, employees in homes, et. al. The only thing you can count on being
first class are the chargeswhich are often higher than what the whites pay for
the services these same Blacks give at the highest level of their competence.
The exceptions to this general rule are not enough to affect such a damaging
situation.

This is why, in proposing specific steps in organizing a whole people, emphasis
is placed on training at the very outset for all persons involved directly in
the work, For the great task of developing real mutual respect must be
undertaken by people who have it themselves. We are no longer interested in the
often hypocritical rhetoric of brothers and sisters. Too often brothers and
sisters are mouthed, by some with the
biggest Afro-bush while mugging, raping or killing these same brothers and
sisters.

Out of this general attitude, which serves the white supremacy position so
well, develops an indifference to high standards of excellence in all-black
situations, and that strict business methods in the areas of auditing,
accounting, or strict financial procedures in the collection, deposit and
management of other peoples moneythese safeguards are thought by many to have
no place in the black community.

Here we have a contradictory mental twist among Blacks. For while distrust of
one another is characteristic, when it comes to the thousands of do-good
organizations into which we pour millions of dollars, the idea is that one
should trust the brothers and sisters who collect, hold and control the
peoples money.

Re-education will be required for the two mandatory changes in attitude:
one toward each other in terms of mutual respect, and the other, a change in
attitude about efficiency, expertise in business management amid financial
responsibility and administration. Unless we begin to develop and expand these
first, a great survival movement will fail just as many other noble efforts
failed because the rush neglected the necessary foundation.

White prejudice was manisfested,"not because there is a difference between us in religion or color, but because there is a difference between us in power." Marcus Garvey